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With New Method of Green Hydrogen Production Underway, MIT Researchers May Finally Solve the Problem of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Maritime Vessels.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are conducting a new study, seeking a practical solution to address the issue of greenhouse gas emissions in the global shipping industry. The team responsible for the study at MIT has developed an emission-free method to produce green hydrogen for maritime applications, such as boats, commercial vessels, warships, and submarines.
The most interesting aspect of this study is the innovative way the researchers have found to address the situation. According to them, it is feasible to create a green hydrogen fuel using old soda cans, caffeine, and seawater.
Study on Green Hydrogen Production from Aluminum Is Not New, but It Could Be a Solution
This is not the first time researchers have conducted studies on the use of aluminum – the material from which soda cans are made – in renewable hydrogen production. It is known that hydrogen is one of the byproducts formed after aluminum and water react.
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However, the reaction only works when aluminum is used in its purest form. After the first reaction, an oxide layer forms on the surface of the aluminum, creating a barrier to subsequent reactions. Researchers can use alloys like gallium and indium to purify the aluminum; however, these alloys are rare and expensive.
Another issue to be discussed is the fact that hydrogen fuel is highly flammable. According to observers of the study, a major disadvantage of fueling vehicles with hydrogen is that some designs would necessarily have to transport the gas in a tank, which is considered a very risky setup due to the volatile potential of hydrogen.
Green Hydrogen Will Be Produced from Old Soda Cans
During the study, the researchers transformed old soda cans into aluminum pellets, treated the pellets with an alloy to remove impurities, and reacted them with filtered seawater. As a result, they obtained hydrogen gas.
Despite the great achievement, the scientists identified a limitation: the reaction between the pellets and the filtered seawater occurred at a slow rate, taking several hours to yield hydrogen.
“The team discovered that a low concentration of imidazole (C3N2H4) — an active ingredient in caffeine — is sufficient to significantly accelerate the reaction, producing the same amount of hydrogen in just five minutes, compared to two hours without the added stimulant”, said one of the study’s authors.
Imidazole (C3N2H4) and the saltwater ions from the sea enabled researchers to recover and reuse more than 90% of the gallium-indium alloy, which is extremely important given the rarity of these alloys.
It may be surprising, but even today, about 95% of the hydrogen produced by humans comes from non-renewable sources, such as coal and gas. With the advances made in this study, it will be feasible to produce renewable hydrogen, eliminating the need for fossil fuels and achieving a valuable goal: to produce hydrogen on a large scale and sustainably.
Seawater-Based Hydrogen
As surface vessels and underwater vehicles have direct access to seawater, the method developed by MIT researchers has high potential to provide energy through renewable hydrogen broadly and safely. They would only need aluminum and caffeine, cheap and easy-to-transport products, unlike fossil fuels.
The researchers continue to work on a type of reactor that would further the method to produce green hydrogen in a moving vessel.
“The vessel would contain a supply of aluminum pellets (recycled from old soda cans and other aluminum products), along with a small amount of gallium-indium and caffeine. These ingredients could be periodically channeled into the reactor, along with some of the surrounding seawater, to produce hydrogen on demand”, the MIT researchers emphasized.
According to the researchers, estimates indicate that the green hydrogen fuel produced by the reactor, using 40 pounds (approximately 18.14 kg) of aluminum, would be sufficient to power an underwater glider for up to 30 days.
“We are showing a new way to produce hydrogen fuel, without transporting hydrogen, but by transporting aluminum as ‘fuel’. The next part is to figure out how to use this for trucks, trains, and perhaps planes. Maybe, instead of having to transport water as well, we could extract water from ambient humidity to produce hydrogen. That is in the future”, concluded Aly Kombargi, the lead researcher of the study and a PhD student at MIT.
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